


White knight nights

by provencepuss



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:50:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provencepuss/pseuds/provencepuss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the file says I wrote this in 2012.  It's yet another fix in my SR junkydom</p>
            </blockquote>





	White knight nights

(Author’s note:  recent statistics revealed that an average of 50 cops commit suicide every year in France and some 75% take, or have taken, sleeping pills or anti-depressants to get them through their jobs. In French a sleepless night is ‘une nuit blanche’ – a white night)

 

WHITE KNIGHT NIGHTS

 

Hutch stared at the bottle of pills and dared himself to make it through night without them. He put them back in the cabinet and walked slowly to the bedroom. He sat quietly on the bed and tried to rid his mind of the images that welled up every time he closed his eyes. No amount of ‘Om’ could drown out the sound of metal against metal and the echoing roar of gunfire. His voice webbed and flowed in is ears – calling Starsky’s name and knowing it was in vain.

He sighed and lay down to try to sleep.

The sounds of the night poured into the room against his will; traffic making its way along the street outside Venice Place. People going about their everyday lives were unaware of the horror show playing out in the apartment on the second floor of the curious little building that he had made his home. Voices and doors closing heralded the end of the evening in the restaurant on the first floor. The laughter of happy people oblivious to the daily dramas that played out in this city of dreams and nightmares floated up from the sidewalk.  The City of Angels had its share of demons too.

The clock ticked away the night punctuated by the distant wail of sirens of ambulances and fire trucks and his brother cops on their way to clean up yet another mess.

Somewhere in the night of his mind he could hear the constant hiss and beep of the machine that was keeping Starsky alive.

He pummeled the pillow and tried to sleep.

A garbage truck moved along the street, reminding Hutch that he hadn’t taken his trash bag down for days. He forced a smile – why bother, there was nothing in it. He couldn’t eat; couldn’t even drink. His whole survival was hitched to Starsky’s motionless body on a bed surrounded by wires and tubes.

The clock showed six am.  He rolled out of bed and stumbled to the shower. Cold water then hot and a rudimentary shave revived him enough to navigate his way to the hospital and another long vigil.

Dobey and Huggy looked at him as if he were a ghost; a phantom cop haunting his partner’s bedside. 

A lead took his mind off the painful reality of Starsky’s room. He spent the day with Huggy and resisted the temptation to follow him back to The Pits at the end of the day.

Somewhere in the dulled depths of his consciousness the memory of a childhood refuge bloomed; if he wasn’t in his apartment the nightmares might not find him.  He drove mechanically, steering his unwieldy car up the canyons to the house that seemed to be perched in a tree. He let himself into the emptiness of Starsky’s house.

Sleep evaded him; the noises of the canyon night were amplified by his misery.  He rolled off the bed and went in search of something, anything, to ease his distress. Starsky had three bottles of good wine – too good to use as a refuge from reality. His fridge revealed a lone can of beer and a piece of cheese that was growing a fur coat. He threw the cheese in the trash can and popped the tab of the can.

It wasn’t enough.

He went into the bathroom and searched the neatly arranged cabinet. Starsky avoided medication; he took heavy painkillers for his migraines and for a moment Hutch hefted the bottle in his hand. He knew the dangers; opiate pain-killers were off limits for him after his brief descent into junkydom.  On the shelf below, he found Starsky’s shaving kit. He opened the pouch and removed the razor. It would be easy enough. One swift movement…across his wrist?…across his neck? …and he would no longer have to worry anything. He caught sight of his haggard face in the mirror; cursed Marcus for giving him the nickname that weighted his life like the old-fashioned armor that Lancelot wore. He replaced the razor and slipped back into the bedroom. He couldn’t sleep on Starsky’s bed.

Driving home he alternated between praying to the god that he had abandoned to the formal see-and-be-seen Sundays of his childhood and cursing a malevolent god who could allow this to happen.

“I thought he was supposed to be one of your Chosen!” he raged at the night sky.

 

The stairs to his apartment were steeper than Jacob’s Ladder; the Slough of Despond was up, not down. He opened the door and dropped his jacket where if fell.

The pills were still in the cabinet.

He shook one onto his hand and went in search of a glass of water.

Tomorrow would be another day; new leads, new questions would give him something to take his mind off Starsky lying still and silent, like King Arthur in the boat.

But Lancelot won his quest and became a hero.

Hutch lay down to sleep and dreamed of White Knights and heroes arising from the mists of the empire of death.


End file.
